A Lenten Interlude - which will largely be about the books I’m reading as a discipline - though discipline is not quite the right word.
The books I have read have always been a piecemeal selection and there are many glaring omissions. Since 2004 I’ve been using Lent to fill some of those gaps.
Some books are obviously christian, but the majority are there because I felt I should have read them, or need to read them again. Some have been hard work, others a complete delight e.g. To Kill a Mockingbird, which was in the first clutch of books chosen and one of the reasons it seemed a good practise to continue.
I’ve decided to put this interlude into a blog for two reasons a) one of this year’s books - a reread of Bird by Bird - suggests writing regularly and this seems a good way to enforce it, and b) I hope it will encourage attentiveness to what I’m reading
This year’s books are:
Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver√
Small Island - Andrea Levy√
Tesserae - Denise Levertov√
Bird by bird - Anne Lamott
Magisteria - Nicholas Spencer√
With a subs bench of
Light Perpetual - Francis Spufford
The Underground Railway - Colson Whitehead
Christian Wiman - The Long Home√
Getting Better - Michael Rosen
A memoir of my former self - Hilary Mantel
This is the story of a happy marriage - Anne Patchett
Killing the Black Dog - Les Murray√
